Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[226]

Worse than confiscation, prison or rope, which could only reach a limited number, the South, under the reconstruction laws, was subjected to the most humiliating conditions of a conquered people, and, but for her pluck and patience, would have been destroyed; nevertheless, we have all learned, and all believe, that now, as an integral part of this great country, we all owe the same loyalty to the American nation that we owed, primarily, to the States. And so, notwithstanding little expressions that may ruffle sectional pride, and others that might indicate, if uttered now, the fatherhood of that bete noir of the Stalwarts, Bourbonism, with this explanation, begging forgiveness for its apparent egotism, I will add this little contribution to the historical records of the war as it was written nearly two decades ago, with only such corrections of its careless execution as a proper respect for Mr. Lindlay Murray, and the printer, may impose.

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Paper no. I.

I do not propose to write a history of the Confederate campaign in Kentucky, but to give a true and faithful narrative of those events of which I was an eye witness, or which came to my knowledge on unquestionable authority. My very friendly acquaintance with Dr. L. A. Smith, the Medical Director of the Army of East Tennessee, and sometimes called the “brains of the army” --in whose rare sagacity and judgment General Kirby Smith placed the greatest trust; General John Pegram, the Chief Assistant Adjutant General on the staff of Kirby Smith--one of the noblest and gentlest gentlemen it was ever my good fortune to know; and Colonel Wm. G. Brent, also an Assistant Adjutant General on the staff, and a man of very decided talents and the highest courage — and the confidence they reposed in me, gave me the opportunity to know and to understand, not only the actual movements of that portion of the army, (and it was the largest portion,) which General Smith led into Kentucky, but the causes which produced them and the objects sought, and, thus enables me to make the narrative of the achievements of this wing of the army, and its chiefs, an almost absolute historic verity.

But with the history of that part of the campaign, conducted under the immediate direction of General Bragg, the situation is altogether different. Not only have I no accurate knowledge in detail of many of the movements of his troops before the armies were united, but although General Bragg has since been bitterly assailed in the public press, and defended with an equally partizan zeal, no one, it is probable, outside